


neon rust

by alligatorblood



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Blood Drinking, F/F, Scientist!Rose, Vamp!Bella, honestly.. hand in unlovable hand, perhaps a morally ambiguous character or two, this is not angsty but it sure is Something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29347107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alligatorblood/pseuds/alligatorblood
Summary: A scientist, her vampire, and what's left of the world.
Relationships: Rosalie Hale/Bella Swan
Comments: 17
Kudos: 120





	neon rust

**Author's Note:**

> i'm gna say strong T for horny reasons, but YEAH back to my rosella roots for this.... weirdo bizarro fic.
> 
> Rose is human and Bella is a vampire.
> 
> find me on tumblr @rosedenali for more gay twilight content!

Bella putters around the obliterated scrapyard, looking through the rusted out trash for something with potential. The wind howls through the pulverized outskirts of Reno, Nevada. There’s nothing here, really. Nothing Rose can use.

She pulls off her intensely filtered and buckled mask. It’s supposed to protect her from the corrosive atmosphere, the unbreathable air. But Rose doesn’t know that Bella hasn’t taken a real breath since 1998 when Jess convinced her to go to her first (and last) college party, and an army of newborns headed south decided that house was as good as any to refuel. Pretty much everyone died, but Bella had the unenviable luck of a cowardly vampire nervously sucking on her arm, accidentally depositing more venom than the blood he took.

It’s been twenty-three years. She doesn’t really care anymore.

_This,_ however. This hellscape of gnarled rebar and devastated civilization is relatively new. Humans can’t survive more than a few hours out here. What animals are left are strange. They have extra limbs and seemingly heightened aggression. It is unforgiving out here, but not unsuited to her kind. 

She wonders how many are still out there. How many vampires survived the blast. Rose is the only person she’s come across in the months since. It isn’t looking good.

.

Bella sits on the edge of her cot, watching carefully as Rose pokes through the pile of salvage with a look of clear disapproval on her face. She goes back to her workbench after grabbing only a few small pieces. 

“I’m from Washington,” Bella tries. It’s been difficult engaging with Rose. “I was traveling…when it hit.”

Rose cranks her wrench in another wasteland bunker entirely. Bella sticks her hands in her pockets and turns to leave her to her designs. 

“New York,” Rose mutters after her.

Smiling, Bella pauses in the low doorway. “City girl?”

The human grips the wrench in both hands and sets her jaw as she struggles for leverage against a rusted nut. Bella is about to offer a hand when she breaks through the resistance, competent to the end. “No,” Rose says as she’s leaving, “not really.” 

.

The compound weathered the blast but not in totality. Some walls have buckled, fracture lines threaten integral spaces, heavy machinery is overturned and unusable for it. 

While Rose sleeps, Bella corrects what she can, making sure to return to her cot each morning before the human awakens.

.

“I am a scientist,” Rose says one afternoon. 

“I know. Your face was on the billboards.” Bella lifts a fallen beam from across the doorway and holds it back for Rose to pass. She pretends not to notice her cool blue stare as she walks by. “I was an English teacher.”

“I’m very busy,” Rose goes on as if Bella hadn’t spoken.

“I know. Just tell me if I can help.”

.

Months ago, Bella found Rose through a haze of thick yellow dust and miles of rugged debris. She followed the scent of blood, naturally. There was blood everywhere in those days, but Rose’s blood had _heat_. Life behind it.

The trail led to a compound out in the middle of Nevada’s high desert. When she approached, the titanium doors opened with a whoosh.

Rose was further inside, pinned to the ground by some kind of blinking machine. Bella acted without thinking and rescued her. Only after she gathered the human in her arms did she realize that white light buzzed above and filtered air blew through her hair. 

She found Rose inside a fully-functioning bomb shelter.

.

Aside from salvage, Rose doesn’t exactly need her help. The woman is brilliant. It didn't take long after her wounds healed for Bella to see the kind of magic that clings to her.

Within a week she designed and crafted a special suit to protect Bella when she would venture outside the bunker. 

She works endlessly in her lab trying to repair the damage from the blast and tweak what stood firm in order to best face the new toxicity of the outside planet.

Bella stays out of her way when she can, but she can’t help but watch her sometimes, the blueprints flashing in her eyes as she builds. Sometimes her eyes flash suddenly to Bella’s, irritated by the lingering but altogether unbothered by her constant presence.

.

Rose doesn’t sleep well.

Often, Bella hears her sit up in the night and grip the edge of her cot so tightly it creaks. Then she’ll get up and go back to her lab until she falls asleep on top of her notes, safe with her science.

Sometimes she lies awake and stares at the ceiling. Just like Bella.

“It’s so quiet,” she says. 

“It’s nice,” Bella says, taking it in again. 

“I want to ruin it,” Rose says before rolling over and fighting for sleep. 

.

There is, of course, a small rodent problem in the bunker. Not just mice but beefed-up mutants that skipped about six million years of evolution to scuttle around the surface floor of the compound. Bella is content to hunt them at night while Rose rests, but Rose, ever the rockstar of the science world, takes matters into her own hands.

Bella is in the middle of mending a hole in her only sweater when out of the corner of her eye she sees a flash of bright purple.

Across from her, Rose is chewing on some dehydrated eggs and going over some data Bella doesn’t understand.

“What was that?”

“The sound a trap makes as it snaps shut.”

Bella goes over to the corner where she saw the light. There’s some kind of contraption against the wall and on the floor below is a slightly charred crater and some little brown hairs on the otherwise sterile and cerebral white tile.

“What did you do to it?”

Rose takes a drink of her water and shrugs.

.

“Rose?” 

“Yeah?”

“I guess I should tell you. I’m not human.”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“I know.”

Bella straightens, caught off guard. “How?”

Rose glances up from the mechanical Frankenstein monster on her table. “I’ve been running tests on you since we met.”

“I-”

“You forgot your mask one time when you were out. Nothing happened to you. Not to mention about a hundred other things. I have plenty of evidence if you want to see it.” 

The quiet that falls on them is strange. But of course Rose figured it out. That’s why they paid her the big bucks when money was still real. But why did she let her go on pretending? 

“What kind of tests?” Bella says finally.

“Extremely invasive and unethical ones.” 

“Well, I haven’t noticed.”

“No,” she says. “You wouldn’t.” 

As Bella leaves the lab, metal sings in the air. Her hand shoots out behind her and wraps around the heavy handle of the wrench her mad scientist companion has lobbed at her. Bella turns and raises an eyebrow. 

Rose shrugs. “That was for fun. I know your reflexes are good.” 

“What happened to _do no harm_?”

“I’m a scientist, not a doctor.”

“You’re everything now.” 

Rose crosses the room to take her wrench back. “I’m nothing. You’re nothing.” She gestures all around with the wrench. “This is post-nothing.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s meaningless.”

“That’s exactly what it means.”

.

Bella sits on the end of a table in nothing but a white tank top and shorts. Rose is standing close, listening to the emptiness inside her with a stethoscope. 

“Super speed and strength, near invulnerability. No working internal structures...question mark?”

Rose pushes her hair aside to check the nonexistent pulse in her neck. She’s standing between Bella’s knees, one hand on her thigh, concentration and puzzlement across her face. 

“Am I missing anything?”

“I don’t get tired.” 

“Ever?”

“No.”

Rose writes that down. “And how have you been surviving?”

“Animals out in the Waste.” 

“And the mutations?”

“I try not to look.” 

Rose closes her notebook and taps Bella’s forehead with the end of her pen. “You’re ridiculous.” 

“What else am I supposed to do?”

Rose’s focused eyes flash- a mad scientist in love with danger more than knowledge as Bella is so quickly learning. “Me.”

“ _You_?"

“Yes. Hard data on vampire feedings... If my colleagues were still alive, this would kill them. I’m sure.” She looks floored. Like a kid about to ride the tallest rollercoaster in the park. 

“I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Oh, please. Spare me your human-adjacent TedTalk.” She rests her warm hands on her patient’s thighs and leans in, her scent invading Bella. Metal and salt, faint synthetic perfume from the cheap soap they salvaged. “Besides, ethics are subjective.”

She’s so warm and disorientingly _willing_ , Bella has to swallow the venom flooding her mouth. “You’re kind of messed up.” 

Rose nods. “So mess me up more.”

.

“I read about you once.” 

Rose gives a short laugh. “I’m sure you did.” 

“They called you a maverick.” 

“Better than a witch.” 

Bella looks up at her as she jots something down on her notepad and goes back to the mangled engine she’s stripping on the floor. 

“That’s what they do when they don’t understand you. When you won’t listen. They call you a maverick and fawn over your every breath.” She sighs and sits down on the cold floor. “Even if it’s the wrong one.” 

“So it’s true.”

Rose nods once. “Every word of it.”

“You built the bomb.”

“With my bare hands.” 

“To...stave off the invasion, right?”

Rose lifts her head. Their eyes link across the bay, intense but full of some kind of corrosive ribbon- just like Earth’s new atmosphere. 

“What invasion.”

. 

Bella sinks her teeth into Rose’s warm neck, pretending to ignore the way the evil scientist gasps and clutches her waist. It did not take long for Bella to notice that these feedings have gone from scientific to something else entirely. Rose didn’t even bring her clipboard this time.

And if that were not already enough evidence, then the heat growing inside the human beneath her hands would have spelled out the rest. Normally, Bella would have said something- perhaps to preserve the integrity of their experiment, but she just tastes so damn good when she’s like this. Rose would probably have an explanation too. Something like neurochemicals crossing the blood-brain barrier. Whatever it is, it took her blood straight to heaven.

When Bella pulls away she can’t help but look at her, breathing hard beneath the sodium lights, chest heaving, eyes closed tightly, blood dripping from the bite. She has a fistful of Bella’s tattered t-shirt, the other pinned somewhere between them. This woman who killed the whole world.

Bella leans forward, darting her tongue over the wound to close it with venom. She’s careful to keep it light. Turning Dr. Rosalie Hale is not the goal of this. But then, what is?

Rose opens her eyes as Bella backs off, her arms outstretched as if chasing the contact. But she seems to get a hold of herself quickly enough. She takes in a steady breath and smiles. “I think that went well,” she says as she slips off the table and walks out of the room.

.

Bella eyes the wires Rose is attaching to her chest and arms warily. She’s got that look in her eyes like when she was inventing the mutant rodent dematerialization trap.

“Rose, is this safe?”

“No way to know.”

“Please, don’t kill me.”

“Ha ha,” she says as she attaches more wires. She checks something on her monitor and makes a few adjustments there before smiling widely again. 

“What are you even testing?” Bella asks.

Rose just giggles to herself and mutters something under her breath, which Bella can totally hear clear as day.

“Rose, did you just say pain tolerance?”

“Yes,” the scientist says, and then she throws the switch. 

.

“Why did you do it?”

“What? Oh, the TETHYS?”

“Yeah.”

“They told me I couldn’t.”

“So you just...killed everyone?”

“Not everyone.”

“Don’t you feel bad?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why would you-”

Rose reaches out in the darkness and clamps a hand over Bella’s mouth. “There’s something wrong with me. Haven’t you noticed?”

Bella pulls her hand away. “Sort of.”

“I get really into my work. I have a theory. I prove it.” 

“At all costs?”

“Yeah.”

.

“I’m finished,” Rose announces one evening. She sounds proud and arrogant and like Bella should be handing her some kind of award.

Bella looks up from her torn-up DSM-6. Rose is in the same clothes as yesterday, she has a wild look in the blue of her eyes. “Finished?”

She holds up a twisted metal contraption that looks unnervingly close to a gun from an old _Doom_ game.

“What the hell is that?”

Rose flips a switch on the side and the device hums to life and begins to take on a peculiar glow. “There is a concentration of thermal energy twenty miles north of here.” 

“That’s....”

“Downtown, yes.” 

“But the wreckage… The _mutants_ -”

Rose holds up the gun that’s now pulsing with bright blue energy. She aims it at the wall that divides the bay from the hangar. The discharge blows straight through. 

“Jesus Christ, Rose!”

Rose switches the gun off and pushes it into Bella’s hands. “Seventy-two weeks ago, I ended the world. Find me some survivors.”

.

“Kill me if you want,” Rose says airily to the ragtag band of shivering fallout left-behinds that Bella has herded into the compound over the past six weeks. “But just know that if my heart stops beating, this entire facility shuts down.”

“So, what? You expect us to listen to you? After all you’ve done to us?” the strongest (and that’s not saying much) of the rescues says, shaking his fist at her.

“Do whatever you want. I don’t care. If you stay out of my way, I’ll build you a new world to destroy.”

.

In the night, Bella feels Rose’s hands descend on her. She can’t sleep, but the quiet of the wasteland makes her meditative state feel something in the range of comatose. However, the new circus of humans in the lab is throwing a wrench in that. It’s more annoying than the actual wrenches Rose throws at her when she gets a burst of inspiration. 

Now as she opens her eyes, she sees Rose leaning above her, lit by the emergency lights that never really go off (they _have_ been in an emergency for about 18 months), lip bleeding like she’d bitten through it. 

“What’s wrong?”

She has her science eyes, but something’s different. She looks…scared. Bella sits up and scans the area for sound. She hadn’t heard anything concerning earlier.

“Rose?”

“I didn’t think about it.”

“What?”

“More humans,” she says, exasperated. “More choices, more blood.”

Bella thinks back to a few hours ago, blood in her mouth, Rose wrapped around her, clawing at her shoulders, gasping, heat coming off her in waves. _Touch me_ , she’d whispered, her mouth hot against Bella’s ear.

“There are fourteen of us now. I’m just the bitch who dropped the cataclysm.”

“I love your experiments.”

“Our experiments.”

Bella grins at the correction. “Those even more.” 

She threads her fingertips through Rose’s long and somehow still pretty perfect blond hair. She curls her fingers and pulls a bit, just to shake the radon from her gaze. “Get some blood flow to that huge brain of yours. I take what _you_ give and nothing else. We’re killing your colleagues, remember?”

Rose beams and climbs onto the cot with her. She pulls the collar of her shirt away from her neck. “You could take a little more if you wanted. I always get so close…then you’re gone.”

Bella swallows and tries to suppress the heat creeping through her. “Rose…I take too much already. You’re weak right now.”

“Again with your silly ethics.”

“I’m thinking about the compound as a whole. If you die, they die.”

“You won’t sleep with me…for the good of the community?”

“You’re the one who rigged this place to your biorhythms, not me. But no, I said I wouldn’t _bite_ you.”

Rose climbs off of her. “That’s the best part!”

Bella rolls her eyes. “Aren’t scientists supposed to be good at the long game?”

“Yes, and that’s why I take instant gratification anywhere I can get it. You’re a vampire, you should understand that better than anyone.”

“Rose...” Bella takes her chin in her hand and looks over the split in her lip. 

The human huffs a dramatic sigh. “At least push me into a wall or something. All that _strength_ , and you’re so soft... a waste in this wasteland.”

“Doctor, you’re cracked.”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re here.”

.

Rose invents a water purifier out of a pile of lint and a belt buckle. At least that’s how it seems to Bella. 

The strays drink greedily. But they deserve any small happiness that can be conjured at this point. They survived the blast and the toxic fallout. They are all scathed deeply in some way or another. They look broken, half-dead, and sad most of the time.

“Why are you so nice to us?” a girl no more than twelve asks with giant, watery green eyes. “Didn’t you want us all to die?”

Rose laughs and bends down to the girl’s level. “If I wanted you to die, you’d be dead.”

.

One year of safety in Dr. Hale’s bunker and the ragtag survivors have since cleaned up their look. They are still lawless with the freeze-dried food, hoarding it in their little corners of cordoned territory, but mostly, they are finding new ways to live under the helpful but altogether uncaring eye of the evil doctor herself.

The lights flicker above in the medical bay as a woman who only made it through six months of nursing school (before the end of the world interrupted) stitches up the arm of their newest rescue. 

“What’s happening?” the young boy asks, looking around and straining against the thread. 

“Electrical work,” the almost-nurse says, patting his arm.

Two floors above, Rose anchors her fingers into Bella’s silky brown hair as the vampire slowly inches her up the summit of some treacherous and wonderfully tall mountain from her place knelt so comfortably between her legs.

Her nerves burn white-hot as the coil inside her tightens. A strangled sound escapes her and she curses it a death of radiation poisoning because Bella pulls away and grins up at her, smug in her immortality and endless endurance. 

“Shush,” Bella says before lowering her head and biting into Rose’s thigh right as her pleasure hits the peak and tips over into the freefall below.

A high pitched noise sounds through the intercom and the lights cut out. Machinery all throughout the compound whirs to a halt.

“Uh, Rose? What’s going on?”

Rose sits up and types something on her watch like a madwoman. After a minute she curses, then laughs and climbs to her feet, flushed and shimmery with sweat.

“What happened?”

“The building thinks I’m dead.”

.

“Am I a bad person?” Bella asks as she sifts through Rose’s abstract. The introduction of vampirism seemed only to widen the breadth of her genius. It took her three days to get the compound back into running order. She worked tirelessly and refused the gratitude of the community below when the light came back in a shock and the air flowed cool and dry once more. 

“Yes.”

“Really? You answered that quickly.”

“I’m not going to call you a saint.” 

“Why not?”

Rose slides her wrist over the page to start a new line. “Hm, saints are boring. And they’re not very good with their tongues.”

“Is that all I am to you?”

“Yes.”

Bella frowns. It stings a little more than she thought it would. They’ve been together in this bunker a long time now.

“I didn’t mean that,” Rose says, putting her work aside. “Just... Before I thought I didn’t need anything of the world. _Anyone_. I’m not used to needing someone.”

“You need me?”

“Of course I do. Without you I would have blown the Earth out of the solar system by now- _which_ I have a theor-”

“No,” Bella says flatly.

“You can’t stop me,” Rose says, a six-thousand Kelvin smile. There goes the atmosphere. Again. 

Bella leans over her endless stacks of reports and logs and kisses her temple. “I can and I will.” 


End file.
